MOVIE REVIEW : New Faces Rescue the Familiar Plot of ‘Zebrahead’

The best thing about “Zebrahead” (citywide) is the freshness of its mostly new-to-movies cast. The worst thing is the “Romeo and Juliet” plot line, which was dated even in Shakespeare’s day.

This mixture of crisp and stale doesn’t always go down well, but, in its own unassuming way, the film works up a load of sympathy anyway. First-time writer-director Anthony Drazan doesn’t have the kind of movie skills that might have energized the material--most of the film looks as flat as standard TV fare. But he has the instincts to let the performers carry the day. They seem to be creating the drama right before our eyes.

Zack (Michael Rapaport), large-framed, red-headed, Jewish, lives in a racially mixed neighborhood. (The film, rated R for strong language, was shot in Detroit.) His closest friend Dee (DeShonn Castle) is black. Recently broken up with his girlfriend, Zack takes up with Dee’s beautiful cousin Nikki (N’Bushe Wright), newly arrived from Brooklyn. Their tentative romance manages to alienate a number of black classmates, including the volatile Nut (Ron Johnson) and Al (Abdul Hassan Sharif), a Muslim with a nonstop separatist rant.

Zack is a familiar white urban character, though not so familiar in movies, and it helps that Rapaport is a down-to-earth, non-actor-ish looking performer. (He’s been a stand-up comic and had roles in several TV series.) Zack is energized by black culture; he’s up on the latest lingo and hip-hop. His affair with Nikki is presented as an extension of his love of black culture, which seems deep-seated and genuine. (That’s what Nikki’s mother, who is suspicious of Zack, doesn’t recognize. She thinks he’s slumming.) “Zebrahead”-- zebra is slang for interracial couple--might have been more interesting if Zack’s embrace of black culture had more layers, more contradictions. There’s a scene where he takes Nikki to a party thrown by his white friends and she overhears him chiming in on some racist shoptalk; it’s a clumsy sequence but at least it takes some of the luster from Zack’s halo. It’s a much-needed corrective.

Wright, who has trained as a dancer, has an easygoing grace. But she also has a hard-edged quality that keeps Zack, and us, off balance. When she’s with him she’s both dreamy and wary. She’s hypersensitive to mood.

As Nut, Johnson has a free-wheeling energy that’s like an acting equivalent of rap. He carries inside himself a hissing fuse of anger. His mixture of exasperation and tenderness when he’s around Nikki provides the most eloquent moments in the movie.

There are other stand-out performances. DeShonn Castle is unfailingly natural as Dee. Ray Sharkey, as Zack’s father, creates a weirdly sympathetic character from a role that practically defines sleazoid. He’s more tolerant of Zack’s interracial affair than Nikki’s mother is, but the tolerance is based on a sleazeball’s pragmatism: He just wants to make sure Zack is making whoopee.

“Zebrahead” is of interest primarily as a showcase for its gallery of (mostly) new faces. It makes us want to see them again in a movie that really soars.

‘Zebrahead’

Michael Rapaport: Zack

DeShonn Castle: Dee

N’Bushe Wright: Nikki

Ron Johnson: Nut

An Oliver Stone presentation of an Ixtlan production, released by Triumph. Director Anthony Drazan. Producers Jeff Dowd and Charles Mitchell. Executive producers Oliver Stone and Janet Yang. Screenplay by Anthony Drazan. Cinematographer Maryse Alberti. Editor Elizabeth Kling. Costumes Carol Oditz. Music Taj Mahal. Production design Naomi Shohan. Art director Dan Whifler. Set decorator Penny Barrett. Running time: 1 hour, 44 minutes.

MPAA-rated R (strong language).